BA ‘all systems down’ again (apparently) at T5

[Richie]

Does AA at T5 have their own check in desks?

[Lady London]

dougzz99 wrote:

It seems BA have decided to reduce the schedule to try and better manage the endless issues. So I think in the next couple of weeks you can expect full flights, with 3-3 in CE on short haul. Doubtless they’ll be no proactive compensation for this.
I genuinely wonder whether BA can really recover long term, the years of cuts and the use of C19 to slash staff are now really starting to bite. They were offering double pay + £25/hour to staff to stay on after their shifts completed yesterday.
I don’t expect this to be a hack, just more problems they’re experiencing with ever increasing frequency having gutted their IT services. You can rid yourself of cost by dumping managers and IT support and experience no falloff in service, until you do. It’s then catastrophic as you have no in house skills to resolve anything.

in the past 40 years and especially in the 10-12 years post-2000 the strategy of cutting all core expenses to the bone, comprtitively tendering and choosing on price, outsourcing, offshoring : all these turned short-term profit (and therefore leadership bonuses) for many many firms.

We are extrwmely lucky that in a field where safety is key and efficient operations are the heart of what makes the business work, thanks to a perfect storm of Covid and its economic consequences and Brexit we arw being given a chance to see that strategy not workimg unfolding before our very eyes in serious meltdowns with major, core issues that will now require a ground up new build to fix (if they’ve got any sense). A pity we’re not seeing it with a few more companies who’ve screwed staff and loyal customers and failed to keep investing in the kong term future of their companies in favour of short term rewards to mamagement and shareholders.

[Lady London]

Lady London wrote:

dougzz99 wrote:

It seems BA have decided to reduce the schedule to try and better manage the endless issues. So I think in the next couple of weeks you can expect full flights, with 3-3 in CE on short haul. Doubtless they’ll be no proactive compensation for this.
I genuinely wonder whether BA can really recover long term, the years of cuts and the use of C19 to slash staff are now really starting to bite. They were offering double pay + £25/hour to staff to stay on after their shifts completed yesterday.
I don’t expect this to be a hack, just more problems they’re experiencing with ever increasing frequency having gutted their IT services. You can rid yourself of cost by dumping managers and IT support and experience no falloff in service, until you do. It’s then catastrophic as you have no in house skills to resolve anything.

in the past 40 years and especially in the 10-12 years post-2000 the strategy of cutting all core expenses to the bone at the expense of quality loss, competitively tendering and choosing on price, outsourcing, offshoring : all these turned short-term profit (and therefore leadership bonuses) for many many firms. Admittedly these strategies got some firms out of a bad hole, but they were done excessively, and just for greed, far more than needed.

We are extremely lucky that in a field where safety is key and efficient operations are the heart of what makes the business work, thanks to a perfect storm of Covid and its economic consequences and Brexit we are being given a chance to see that strategy very publicly and indeniably, not working. The chickens have come home to roost in the ceiling of T5.

Unfolding before our very eyes in serious meltdowns with major, core issues that will now require a from-ground-up new build to fix (if they’ve got any sense). A pity we’re not seeing it with a few more companies who’ve screwed staff and loyal customers and failed to keep investing in the long term future of their companies in favour of short term rewards to management and shareholders.

[yorkshireRich]

Lady London, I know you are an expert on this matter. I wonder if I am entitled to anything at all today. We are flying to Berlin, checked in as it stated it was on time. Ever since we arrived the board keeps changing to “delayed to..” and “gate shown at…”

We have now received the texts from BA now we have checked in and at gate A that the flight is delayed.

[Lady London]

Definitely meals if mealtimes occur during extra wait time if over 2 hours on shorthaul departure should be reimbursed no alcohol £25 pp seems to be the going rate for Heathrow.

Someone else might know if £220 or so compo as well, for delay beyond scheduled time at destination but if so, unsure if 2 hours late is sufficent.

[dougzz99]

@LL – “Unfolding before our very eyes in serious meltdowns with major, core issues that will now require a from-ground-up new build to fix (if they’ve got any sense). A pity we’re not seeing it with a few more companies who’ve screwed staff and loyal customers and failed to keep investing in the long term future of their companies in favour of short term rewards to management and shareholders.”

I honestly feel that a company the size of BA couldn’t (properly) build and test a new system in less than 3 years, probably longer. I suspect their strategy needs to be a gradual unwinding of the worse parts and a porting where possible of separate parts to newer more robust platforms. Even this is a huge task, and if you go with lowest tender the problems will multiply. Not that price provides and guarantee in IT.

[Mouse]

Lady London wrote:

Definitely meals if mealtimes occur during extra wait time if over 2 hours on shorthaul departure should be reimbursed no alcohol £25 pp seems to be the going rate for Heathrow.

Someone else might know if £220 or so compo as well, for delay beyond scheduled time at destination but if so, unsure if 2 hours late is sufficent.

I was reading up on this today – compensation is due after three hours

[Lady London]

dougzz99 wrote:

@LL – “Unfolding before our very eyes in serious meltdowns with major, core issues that will now require a from-ground-up new build to fix (if they’ve got any sense). A pity we’re not seeing it with a few more companies who’ve screwed staff and loyal customers and failed to keep investing in the long term future of their companies in favour of short term rewards to management and shareholders.”

I honestly feel that a company the size of BA couldn’t (properly) build and test a new system in less than 3 years, probably longer. I suspect their strategy needs to be a gradual unwinding of the worse parts and a porting where possible of separate parts to newer more robust platforms. Even this is a huge task, and if you go with lowest tender the problems will multiply. Not that price provides and guarantee in IT.

I agree Dougzz99. This is closer to 10 years than 5 to fix. And that’s if they get the best IT people in to build then change their strategy to actually keep the core expertise inhouse longterm. New build looks expensive but is far, far cheapr in the long run.

Trouble is, as you say, the big names that don’t deliver will have similar upfront pricing to those that will eventually deliver.

[ross]

People in the queue at T5 wondering if BA is actually teetering on the verge of bankruptcy.

This is an absolutely pathetic state of affairs with regular huge disruption resulting in
– immediate loss of revenue
– brand damage
– loss of future revenue, as customers lose trust
– unhappy staff

I wish we were flying with another carrier.

Thank god my EU short haul is all Easyjet

[ChrisC]

Issue isn’t always just BAs IT but all the other systems it has to link to and a lot of those aren’t under theior control – things like the various GDS systems plus airports plus partner airlines. If any of those fall down it can impact on any other syestem and it’s not always easy to trace the fault.

The likes of easy jet don’t have those issues because their systems aren’t part of the GDS (which has both advantages and disadvantages) and were written from scratch to meet their specific needs. If you don’t offer a miles programme or advanced seat slection then you don’t need miles programme or seat selection modules and so on.

Nost airline systems are a mish mash of systems that were first written decades ago and it’s not easy (or cheap) to change those – there are patches upon patches upon patches.

But a new system has problems of their own. In the last 5 years or so I recall both Virgin America and Air Canada swicthing to new systems. Both switches required their entire customer facing web site and apps to be shut down for days. It wasn’t even possible to buy a flight during that shut down. And of course both changeovers went wrong and had delays and all sorts of other problems arose when migrating the data accross.

Of course BAs lack of IT investment and poor choices in what to change when they do invest is 100% down to them. There was no real need to change the layout of how flight / TP / avios history / how HHAs showed how avios were taken from accounts yet they did as part of last autumns’improvements’. We could have provided them with a list of improvements that would have been real improvements (and actually help BA) and not just cosmetic.

And of course they are hopless at communicating any of this. No doubt we’ll all get another Sean Doyle Apology Tour email in a few weeks. Getting more of them than there were ever sightings of the Cruz Hi-Viz

[yorkshireRich]

Lady London wrote:

Definitely meals if mealtimes occur during extra wait time if over 2 hours on shorthaul departure should be reimbursed no alcohol £25 pp seems to be the going rate for Heathrow.

Someone else might know if £220 or so compo as well, for delay beyond scheduled time at destination but if so, unsure if 2 hours late is sufficent.

3 hours 10 minute late now and currently on the aircraft waiting for a slot.

[masaccio]

Lady London wrote:

dougzz99 wrote:

@LL – “Unfolding before our very eyes in serious meltdowns with major, core issues that will now require a from-ground-up new build to fix (if they’ve got any sense). A pity we’re not seeing it with a few more companies who’ve screwed staff and loyal customers and failed to keep investing in the long term future of their companies in favour of short term rewards to management and shareholders.”

I honestly feel that a company the size of BA couldn’t (properly) build and test a new system in less than 3 years, probably longer. I suspect their strategy needs to be a gradual unwinding of the worse parts and a porting where possible of separate parts to newer more robust platforms. Even this is a huge task, and if you go with lowest tender the problems will multiply. Not that price provides and guarantee in IT.

I agree Dougzz99. This is closer to 10 years than 5 to fix. And that’s if they get the best IT people in to build then change their strategy to actually keep the core expertise inhouse longterm. New build looks expensive but is far, far cheapr in the long run.

Trouble is, as you say, the big names that don’t deliver will have similar upfront pricing to those that will eventually deliver.

You can speed it up but it needs leadership to remove some of the complexity that has built over time. I’ve lost count how many times when building IT systems people have said “But what about customer X?” and I’ve pushed back saying we will talk to them about how we’re moving them on to a new (standard) model. Too much IT design is trying to replicate what has been lashed together over decades in systems that are not designed to have that legacy.

[Paul]

The staff situation is dire and last night they were offering double pay plus £25 per hour to stay on. I understand that the response was sub optimal!!

I am still waiting for £1,100 from a month ago with out so much as an apology to date. Shambles doesn’t begin to describe it.

[Paul]

Mouse wrote:

Lady London wrote:

Definitely meals if mealtimes occur during extra wait time if over 2 hours on shorthaul departure should be reimbursed no alcohol £25 pp seems to be the going rate for Heathrow.

Someone else might know if £220 or so compo as well, for delay beyond scheduled time at destination but if so, unsure if 2 hours late is sufficent.

I was reading up on this today – compensation is due after three hours

They could if they wished too. Many of the worlds airlines use the systems of a firm whose offices overlook the runway Many of them buy it off the shelf and run it as intended. BA dont! They have multiple systems in between and it is these that fail. BA’s IT issues are entirely self inflicted and could be solved relatively simply.

• This reply was modified 54 years, 12 months ago by .

[can]

Reporting from LHR T5, family check-in: only two desks are working. The queue is not too bad but it is just so slow. I believe it will take an hour at least with this pace.

[Sam]

Paul wrote:

BA’s IT issues are entirely self inflicted and could be solved relatively simply.

😂

• This reply was modified 54 years, 12 months ago by .

[lucas01789]

Feel sorry for some of the remaining staff. We had left the stand at Nice Airport yesterday afternoon and were waiting for the okay to go when the IT systems breakdown arose. The pilot sounded really embarrassed to have to explain that neither the IT system nor their back-up system were operational and later when he couldn’t give us any idea of when we could get off after we had landed at LHR. Arrived at LHR 4 hours late and then had to wait nearly another 2 hours to collect our bags. Travelling back to the East Midlands but the last train had already left St.Pancras, so had to find a hotel.

I guess that I’m not a typical HfP reader-I tend to travel on LCCs rather than legacy airlines, but I’ve never experienced any of these issues with Ryanair, Easyjet or WizzAir. The optics for BA are not good.

[can]

can wrote:

Reporting from LHR T5, family check-in: only two desks are working. The queue is not too bad but it is just so slow. I believe it will take an hour at least with this pace.

Spoke too soon.. 90min wait, now 1 desk is working in family check in.

[Lady London]

lucas01789 wrote:

Feel sorry for some of the remaining staff. We had left the stand at Nice Airport yesterday afternoon and were waiting for the okay to go when the IT systems breakdown arose. The pilot sounded really embarrassed to have to explain that neither the IT system nor their back-up system were operational and later when he couldn’t give us any idea of when we could get off after we had landed at LHR. Arrived at LHR 4 hours late and then had to wait nearly another 2 hours to collect our bags. Travelling back to the East Midlands but the last train had already left St.Pancras, so had to find a hotel.

I guess that I’m not a typical HfP reader-I tend to travel on LCCs rather than legacy airlines, but I’ve never experienced any of these issues with Ryanair, Easyjet or WizzAir. The optics for BA are not good.

£220 per seat, send your claim in to BA asap for delay over 3 hours from Nice. Absolutely no exemption for BA from paying you this compensation.

It’s unfortunate you weren’t connecting to a further flight on same ticket to get home as otherwise you’d have been able to add reimbursement of hotel and at least 2 meals to your claim under the other, duty of care part, of UK 261 as well.

Send your claim by a provable method, eg screenshot contact form or ideally by post tracked/signedfor to Waterside address. I’d give them 35-40 days to pay as I’m feeling generous today.

[lucas01789]

@LadyLondon

Thanks for the advice. I’m currently composing my claim from advice from here and from Martin Lewis. The BA staff at LHR told us they would not be helping anyone book hotels or with onward transportation, but that we should go and find ourselves a hotel ‘up to the value of £200’ and we’d be refunded. I went on the IHG website and booked the nearest one which had rooms available (most were full)and was near an underground station, which happened to be the Crowne Plaza at Hangar Lane.

[Lady London]

lucas01789 wrote:

@LadyLondon

Thanks for the advice. I’m currently composing my claim from advice from here and from Martin Lewis. The BA staff at LHR told us they would not be helping anyone book hotels or with onward transportation, but that we should go and find ourselves a hotel ‘up to the value of £200’ and we’d be refunded. I went on the IHG website and booked the nearest one which had rooms available (most were full)and was near an underground station, which happened to be the Crowne Plaza at Hangar Lane.

I am surprised they would pay that.

lucas01789 wrote:

@LadyLondon

Thanks for the advice. I’m currently composing my claim from advice from here and from Martin Lewis. The BA staff at LHR told us they would not be helping anyone book hotels or with onward transportation, but that we should go and find ourselves a hotel ‘up to the value of £200’ and we’d be refunded. I went on the IHG website and booked the nearest one which had rooms available (most were full)and was near an underground station, which happened to be the Crowne Plaza at Hangar Lane.

[ChrisC]

£200 is the BA internal policy limit (and oft quoted on here) so that is what the staff would say.

No basis in law for that limit and when challenged they do cough up if it’s more (also oft quoted on here)

[Lady London]

ChrisC wrote:

£200 is the BA internal policy limit (and oft quoted on here) so that is what the staff would say.

No basis in law for that limit and when challenged they do cough up if it’s more (also oft quoted on here)

I’m surprised because passenger’s journey ended at Heathrow so far as the airline is concerned so I would not expect hotel to be covered.

[lucas01789]

As it happened it actual cost £130 inc. breakfast, so we weren’t exactly pushing it to the limit.

The £200 was being quoted by BA staff members to all those queuing for information. Obviously we had to stay somewhere as we couldn’t get home at that time of night. Surely that’s BA’s responsibility-duty of care and all that? Or am I being naive? (first time I’ve been in this situation).

[yorkshireRich]

So I’ve read the website and it states if we have been delayed at our final destination by more than 3 hours then we are due compensation. We set off over 3 hours 20 but the captain assured us he would try to get some time back, and if by magic having now looked at flight history, we were 4 minutes under the 3 hours.